I apologize for the long hiatus with these posts. Unfortunately, the job that pays the bills took up a lot of my Sundays over the last few months. But now that things have slowed down a little in that regard, I’m back and ready to talk about the high points in the last week of television with all of you!
This week in television kicked off with a strong episode of Once Upon a Time (pun intended) on Sunday that introduced us to Hercules and reintroduced us to part of a main character’s identity that’s been missing for far too long. Monday gave us the season finale of The Bachelor, which ended with a proposal but wasn’t exactly a fairytale (or maybe I’m just not used to fairytales that involve a guy telling two women he loves them right until he has to make the choice of who to propose to). On Tuesday’s Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Jake helped Terry solve an old case and stand up to detectives in his old precinct, and Tuesday’s The People vs. O.J. Simpson was a case study in how to use dramatic irony to its fullest. (I wanted to scream “Don’t make him try on the glove!”) Wednesday featured a big Nashville wedding event, as Rayna and Deacon finally tied the knot, and the intense and suspenseful season premiere of The Americans. Finally, the start of March Madness provided college basketball fans with plenty of memorable moments, even if most of our brackets blew up in the process.
Those exciting March Madness games remind us every year not to count people out; it’s not over until it’s over. And that same lesson was presented in a surprising way on Once Upon a Time this week. I’ll admit it: I never expected Snow to find her spark again. I thought she would always be Mary Margaret, and it made me so sad that I tried not to focus on it too much—because it was hard to think about what had happened to my favorite character over the last few seasons of the show. So imagine my delight when Snow not only reclaimed her fighting spirit and her leadership abilities; she reclaimed the name I feared was lost forever. She became a woman of action again, an active participant in her own story instead of a passive supporting character in the stories of those around her. Seeing Snow choose who she wanted to be and how she wanted others to see her was inspirational. And the reactions of those who love her were perfect—from Regina’s “It’s about time!” and Emma’s proud smile to the swoon-worthy sincerity in Charming’s voice when he called his wife by her real name. It finally felt like my favorite character was back, and that moment gave me so much hope—hope that it’s never too late to remember your best self and to connect with that best self again. And when you do decide who you want to be, those you love will be there to support and encourage you.
What was the best thing you saw on TV this week?
Nerdy Girl Notes 
Yay! I’m glad your schedule is calming down a little because it has been insane for too long. And selfishly, I’m also glad these posts are back.
As usual, I have several things I loved this week. First, I completely agree about this moment. It felt so good to see Snow take back her name and the attitude she once had. I loved Regina’s reaction so much. And I also loved Charming looking at Snow with such love in this moment and before Herc and Megara moved on. You see his face and just know that it’s Josh completely adoring his wife and channeling that into their characters and it’s too cute.
Next up was The Carmichael Show. The Cosby episode was good and the show did do a good job of handling it but I preferred the funeral episode for David Alan Grier’s performance. It can’t be easy to do a scene completely on your own, especially not one that requires so much emotion , but the scene where his character confronts his recently deceased father about his abusiveness was brilliant. He imbued the scene with so much emotion and made you feel so strongly for the character and his pain. And by extension, I think it did a lot to give people a better insight into the helplessness than comes with abuse and the damage it causes, even years later.
And finally, once again The Fosters is truly special television. This scene (http://kekela717.tumblr.com/post/141164897339), along with every other moment of this breast cancer arc for Stef has been phenomenal. There was a scene earlier in the episode of Stef and Lena talking to two women, one who opted for implants after a double mastectomy and one who hadn’t and that scene was amazing enough because how often do shows discuss the role breasts play in women’s self conception and society’s views of femininity but then the scene I linked happened and I have been excited about it ever since. It made me proud of Stef as a character because this is a huge realization that she’s made and for her to get go of fear and choose a look that she’s always wanted. But it mostly made me proud to be a fan of this show because it continually says just important things and does so in a very easy and natural feeling way and I’m so incredibly happy it exists.
First of all, how dare you start a comment by talking about how mush Josh loves Ginny?! You know what that does to my heart! 😉
I also apparently need to add The Carmichael Show to my to-watch list because everything I read about it—especially this comment—have me intrigued. And I also NEED to catch up on the episodes of The Fosters I have on my DVR from this season. I got teary-eyed just looking at those gifs, and now I need to see how this whole arc plays out.